Thought Space (beta)

Update

2007-11-15T09:23:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are still checking back to this blog from time to time, rest assured, I am still blogging, just not like before.

Check out my Toronto Real Estate Blog at blogTO.com/Andrew

or my Real Estate site / blog at andrewlafleur.com

Trump!

2007-03-26T17:30:00.000-04:00

I wrote a follow up post after my crazy weekend at the Wealth Expo. Read it here.

Trump Says We're Soft

2007-03-22T18:40:00.000-04:00

Read all about it! The Trump has spoken, and his word is Toronto is soft.

My latest blogTO post.

Random Updates

2007-03-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I actually posted a real post. Life has been very busy the past few weeks. Lots of hoops to jump through to get my license but any minute now I should be officially official. Not that the fact that I don't officially have my license yet has slowed me down.

I've jumped on board the cell phone band wagon! (although I am proud to say I held out until 2007). I even signed my life away on the dreaded 3-year contract. The little Dutchboy inside my head was flying off the handle when I signed that contract, believe me. I went with Rogers because of the GSM/Sim card factor, as well as the bundling factor since I already have Rogers cable, home phone and internet. I like the slider phones so I chose a Samsung over the omnipresent Razr. I've always like the slider style ever since Neo used one in The Matrix.

Went to the Raptors' game last night. Sweet victory over Starbury and the Knicks. It was a bit of a chippy contest and I for one would love to see a renewed rivalry between these 2 teams. The ACC was rockin' as I haven't seen it in quite a number of years. Toronto is really getting behind this team as they slowly realize the Leafs aren't going anywhere this year.
Hopefully I'll be able to get some playoff tix if they make it this year...

My time thus far as a contributor to blogTO has been great. Certainly things have been going better than I anticipated they would at the start. My first 2 posts were both among the most visited, commented, and recommended posts on blogTO for the past 2 weeks. This is pretty good considering the blog probably gets about 10 posts per day. I think Real Estate is just one of those hot-button topics that everyone has an opinion on and everyone likes to talk about. A natural fit for the blogosphere and hopefully people continue to enjoy the posts and who knows where it will lead. Thanks to all my loyal Thought Space readers who have read my blogTO posts and have left comments or clicked on 'recommend this post'.

BTW, my latest blogTO post is up. Read it here.

New blogTO post is up!

2007-03-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Read it here.

The Suspense is Killing Even Me!

2007-03-01T16:18:00.000-05:00

I gotta learn not to do these teasers because they set artificial deadlines that I then must meet. Bah, I'm still learning.

OK, I've actually known about this for over 2 weeks and have been resisting the urge to blog about it. Cue the trumpets! Starting today, I am going to be a contributor to the popular Toronto Blog, blogTO.com, writing about Real Estate in Toronto! This means I will post short articles on various Real Estate related topics on the site starting with once per week and seeing how things go. If the posts are received well, I will probably increase my quantity of posting. Who knows if this will lead to anything significant, but I'm just very excited to be able to see two of my current passions, blogging and Real Estate, coming together in such a cool way. And the fact that blogTO gets over 65,000 unique visitors and over 200,000 hits per month is a nice little bonus.

For a long time I have noticed that Toronto is seriously lacking a good Real Estate blog. Other cities such as Vancouver have several excellent blogs dedicated to all things Real Estate and they have a huge readership too. People love to talk about Real Estate. Contributing to blogTO in this manner is perfect for me because of the built-in audience. Like I said, don't want to get too giddy about this opportunity, but it should be a lot of fun if nothing else.

Here is my first post. Of course I wouldn't mind if everyone I knew went over to blogTO (especially those of you who have never been to the site), and if you posted a comment or clicked on 'recommend this post' I would certainly not hold it against you ;)

Link to my blogTO profile. [Thanks to the magic of alphabetization, I'm #2 on the list of contributors.]

I can feel that weight off my shoulders already!

Life on the other side

2007-02-27T16:51:00.000-05:00

I survived the week of classes out in the 'Shwa, and now I'm officially unemployed...and lovin' every minute of it! (to be read ala Kramer). The course itself was kind of boring, with staying awake through the 7 hours a day being my biggest challenge. The exam was pretty straightforward and now I am awaiting the results so I can get my license and hit the street.

But life is good. Doing stuff during the day time is very cool. Being downtown and out and about between the hours of 9 to 5 is a new experience for me and I'm loving it! I'm going to use the next couple weeks to first of all relax a little bit, second of all get my life organized and get ready for what's next. My excitement level is still somewhere near a 9.6/10, so I'm going to ride this one out for as long as I can.

And, I know I've said this quite a bit over the past few months, but yet again, I have to warn you all to expect another BIG announcement this week on Thought Space (and no, I'm not changing careers again). I can tell you it's related to my new career and it is also blogging related. Two of my favourite things colliding=sweet.

andrewlafleur.com

edit: I just realized i used the 'unemployed and lovin' every minute..' line on my post from feb. 16. I thought it sounded familiar...Shame on me.

Restaurant Review: Hooker Harvey's

2007-02-21T22:11:00.000-05:00

So I had this whole blog post all typed up and then poof! Firefox decides that it is going to shut down and I lose it all. And let me tell you, it was a sweet post. Here's the quick version:

Kristina was out so I was on my own for dinner. Decided to go for a run down to Hooker Harvey's. Always wanted to try it out, I mean, come on, it's a Toronto landmark.

The service was alright, the food was actually great (best Harvey's burger I've had since I've been in Toronto), and I was only harassed by 1 homeless person while eating my meal, so all in all, a good experience. Definitely better than my previous trips to Yonge + Bloor Harvey's, aka 'What happens in the Harvey's bathroom, stays in the Harvey's bathroom Harvey's'. Still, I'll probably only ever go there during daylight hours. Actually, let's be honest; I'll probably never actually go back there again.

Only 3 more days till I'm done all my courses to become a real estate agent! Sweet! No more trips to the 'Shwa in my future!

ANDREWLAFLEUR.COM

2 things

2007-02-16T15:35:00.000-05:00

1) After 2 and a half years of avoiding fate, our car was broken in to this week. They took my old CD player discman thing (circa 2000), some CDs, and our Tape Adapter. I guess there is still a strong demand amongst the crack-head community for CDs and devices to play these CDs. For some reason they did not take the cigarette adapter to power the CD player, nor the 150W Canadian Tire power inverter thing I bought recently. We will miss the tape adapter for hooking up the iPod to the stereo though. Good news is nothing valuable was taken and nothing was broken which is always good. I'd say we did quite well though living downtown with a car for over 2 years and this is our first incident.

2) Today was my last day at work. Wow. It's official-I'm unemployed...and lovin' every minute of it! I enjoyed my last free lunch (...no more 'free lunch') with the company today at The Dynasty, which was one of the first places I went out for lunch with my company so I thought it was a pretty fitting way to end it all. Kristina joined us too which was awesome. I've been wanting to take her to The Dynasty for a long time now.

Don't forget to check out andrewlafleur.com!

andrewlafleur.com

2007-02-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

It's finally here. OK, I'll admit it's not exactly ready for prime time, but I would like to officially introduce to you my new presence on the web

a n d r e w l a f l e u r . c o m

I'm calling this a 'Soft Launch' until I get things more established. I did it in WordPress so I'm still trying to figure out all that CSS mumbo jumbo to customize it they way I like it. Eventually, I would like to have a more substantial, professional looking site for my Real Estate career, but for now, this is what I've got. Check it out. Tell your friends.

I would definitely appreciate your feedback on the site, even at this early stage. The main thing is, from a visual perspective, how can I improve the 'look' of it? I have had some tell me the light green bars and the greyish-blue sidebars should be changed. What do you think?

Thanks to future clients ;) Ethan and Logan for their help on the site thus far.

edit: I seem to be having technical difficulties and the website is down for some unknown reason. Man, I miss the simple days of Blogspotting. Wordpress is my nemesis!

edit#2: We are back up and running! (cross your fingers). thanks dave

The View from Here

2007-02-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

Can you say, SNOW DAY! That's right, I'm working from home today. Rather than fight the traffic and risk life and limb to go into work on my last Wednesday at my current job, I decided to work from home, and actually most of my office did the same thing.

The above pic is the view out one of our windows and it shows how much it snowed last night. A DVD's worth of snow! That's a lot for Toronto people! No need to call in the army, but maybe the boy scouts could pitch in to dig us out.

Holy Crap! I got BoingBoinged!

2007-02-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

Got into work this morning and received the biggest blog-related shock of my Bloglife-I've been Boing Boinged! Link. For those of you familiar with the world of blogs I've said all I need to say. For the uninitiated, Boing Boing is one of the most popular blogs in existence, if not the most popular, and to be 'BoingBoinged' is equivalent to getting your 15 minutes of Blogospheric Fame! WOW! I never thought my little weekend project of turning an IKEA bed into a banquette would attract so much world-wide attention. Vive Le Banquette! Vive Le Banquette Libre!

In other related news, it's official, the Banquette won the 'IKEA Hacker Hack of the Year, 2006' taking 43% of the vote. Thanks to all my readers who undoubtedly voted several times each. Link.

edit: To give you an idea of the kind of impact being BoingBoinged can have, I was talking to the creator of IKEA Hacker and she said page views to her site went from around 4,000/day on average to 38,000 as of 11am this morning!

*Special thanks to Dave and Tyrone for emailing me the link, otherwise I might have missed it altogether!

JB in HD

2007-02-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

After more than 2 weeks of waiting and a series of events worthy of competing with the iSaga for the 'Drama of the year', we finally got our HDPVR up and running and we're lovin' every minute of it (Kramer reference). If I were to tell you of all the events that lead up to this, I would have enough material to blog every day for a month. Suffice it to say, I hate Rogers even more than I used to. But, the HDPVR is working now so my anger has subsided considerably.

The detail you get from a true HD broadcast is remarkable. You can literally see every pore on a person's face during a close up. During a basketball game, you can see the face of every fan in the seats. On a live broadcast like SNL, you can see where the makeup ends and where the actor's real skin begins. Watching a movie like Lord of the Rings in HD, you see details you never even noticed in the past.

The PVR is pretty sweet, you can record one show while watching another or record 2 shows at the same time. It even has a picture in picture function! Very cool because our TV doesn't have one built-in, but it works via the PVR somehow.

Watching Jack Bauer escape certain death just in time to torture his brother yet again was beautiful in HD. But believe it or not, a lot of our 'TV time' so far has been spent watching...wait for it...PBS. Yes, PBS is like the King of HD right now-no joke. They seem to have the most HD broadcasts, they don't have commercials, and their shows are pretty interesting. Last night we watched a Doc on the life of National Geographic photographer-pretty sweet. Speaking of NG, we also get the NG HD channel. It too has some breath taking programming when viewed in HD.

There are still plenty of features I have to figure out on the HDPVR, and some inevitable tweaking will take place, but I'm very happy with it so far. I'm almost glad it's like -30 outside right now-gives me a good reason to stay home and play! [Only 1 more day until Lost if back! 16 all new episodes, no repeats! In HD! Woot!]

How do you give a title to the rest of your life?

2007-01-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

I can almost feel tension on Thought Space this week! My little announcement on Monday made for some interesting chatter in the comments section. No, I'm not shaving my head (although I'd like to), buying a Mac (although I do like the current Mac/PC ads), going on tour with Nickelback (although I do like their music videos), or making any physiological changes to my body. I'm changing careers. I'm getting my Real Estate License and becoming a Real Estate Agent. [Technically, I'm becoming Registered with the Real Estate Council of Ontario and becoming a Realtor, but that's mostly semantics.] Over the month or so I will be giving up the familiarity and routine of the 9 to 5 life for the relative uncertainty of a career in Real Estate. This is both scary and exciting (but mostly exciting!)

For some of you, this may seem like a decision that came outta nowhere. Truth be told, this has been a looong time coming. Ever since I can remember, I've always had entrepreneurial hopes and dreams. Whether it was selling bags of dirt at the end of my driveway, running a highly profitable (yet somewhat illegal) mix-tape business, or pawning off cans of Hires Root Beer for $5US per can to fellow children of ex-pats desperate for the tastes of the home country while living overseas, I've always been of the mind that it's better to work for yourself, rather than for someone else.

Why real estate? Well, there are many reasons, but the main one being the passion I have developed for it over the past year or so. To my estimation, Real Estate has got to be one of the most dynamic, exciting industries around. I mean we are talking about an industry that literally touches the life of every single person alive-whether they realize it or not. And to be honest, I never gave it a passing thought until K and I bought our first place last year. I had so much fun and got such a rush going through the process of buying our condo that one day it hit me, 'Hey, I should really think about doing this for a living!'.

So what does this mean for you, my faithful Thought Space readers? Well, it means that hopefully some time very soon I will have a new presence on the web. Something a little less personal-blog like and more professional-site like. I don't know what the future holds for this blog, but in a perfect world, I would be so busy selling houses that I won't have time to keep up a personal blog! It also means that it's time for my first confession as a soon-to-be real estate agent: I am not self-sufficient. There, I said it. As much as I'd like to sit here and tell you that 'I can make it on my own' and be this big-time successful entrepreneur (throw in a little rags-to-riches and you've got yourself a made for TV movie), I'm going to need your help. The lifeblood of my business (especially in my first year), will be the referrals I get from my friends and family and you can help support me in my new career, by referring my name to people who are thinking about buying or selling real estate in Ontario. Thank you in advance!

So there you have it, the bombshell has been dropped. For many of you, this is actually old news, but for the rest of you....surprise!

Major Announcement this week

2007-01-29T10:03:00.000-05:00

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt

This week expect a significant announcement on Thought Space. A change is coming.

Now, for many of you readers out there, this announcement will be received as the worst-kept secret in all of bloggerdom, but I suspect there are still a few readers for whom this will be news. So, keep your eyes on the blog this week and prepare to be shocked and possibly awed*.

*The makers of Thought Space do not guarantee the reader will be shocked and/or awed at the reading of this announcement. The makers of Thought Space cannot be held responsible for the affects of the shocking and/or awing or the lack thereof.

NBA player profile widget

2007-01-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

This is pretty cool. NBA.com is going all web 2.0y with it's new 'player widgets'. You can snag a little HTML code and add one of these things to your blog, myspace etc. Check out the Bosh man! And how about that game he had last night vs. the Hornets? Wow! CB4 is in the zone right now.

edit: i removed the widget because it was slowing down the whole web page. but you can go here to see it if you want to.

24: Random observations from the first 4 hours

2007-01-22T16:39:00.000-05:00

Last week was the back-to-back 4 hour MEGA premiere of the ever addictive 24. While the show is very entertaining, it's definitely not very 'smart'. I tried thinking of a way to turn these thoughts into a cohesive, readable blog post, but in the true spirit of 24, I decided to just do a little blogo-rreah and dump it all on you at once. Read at your own discretion.

-a NUKE ACTUALLY WENT OFF IN LA!!!
-death count (not including scenes where more than 1 person dies at one time: 4 (jack bite, kid kills neighbour, terrorist kills terrorist, terrorist kills self
-jack kills a man with a single bite to the neck
-jack is tortured just minutes after being freed from 2 years in a Chinese prison
president's sister is arrested
-several allusions to 'tearing up the Constitution', destroying civil liberties, and interrogating innocent people!
-a NUKE ACTUALLY WENT OFF IN LA!!!
-several Toyota product placements? check. accidental Volkswagen product placement
-jb aborts a major terrorist plot by kicking a man through the glass on the LA subway
-plenty of negotiation with terrorists
-several simultaneous terrorist attacks on American soil and the president is chilling out in the oval office with a few close friends. can i get you a coffee mr. president?
-1 great lead off of a terrorist only to result in yet another suicide bombing. man, i hate it when you're about to catch them and they blow themselves up!
-mention of a suitcase nuke? check
-a NUKE ACTUALLY WENT OFF IN LA!!!
-someone asks, 'how many casualties if a nuke goes off in a major American city?' answer turns out to be in the hundreds of thousands! oh gosh, is it going to be that much? dang it! these nukes really are nasty aren't they? GET ME JACK BAUER!
-2 years later and Cloee is STILL constipated!
-% of time all actors combined spend either on a telephone or a cellphone-100%
-2 actors from Harold and Kumar playing lead terrorist roles? check. a 29 year old actor playing a teenager? check.
-offering a terrorist full immunity in exchange for helping 'the greater good'? check. but i have to see it in writing first!
-several scenes in a Socal abandoned factories and/or LA industrial areas? check.
-little mosque on the prairie actor as a CTU agent? check
-reference to something very important happening in 20 minutes when there is 20 minutes left in the show? check.
-reference to 2 offscreen beheadings
-flashbacks to the past 2 years in a chinese prison? 0
-JB vomiting? check'
-a NUKE ACTUALLY WENT OFF IN LA!!!

It turns out I...am...Canadian!

2007-01-22T15:25:00.000-05:00

Living in downtown T.o. has its downsides. Don't get me wrong, I love the city and I'm glad I'm here, but sometimes it's easy to forget what being Canadian is all about when you're living in the urban jungle. Case in point, K and I went to Ottawa this weekend to visit my brother and (very pregnant) sister-in-law. Going to Ottawa in the middle of January is a great way to remind oneself of what a sheltered existence us Torontonians live from the Real Canadian Winter. It was like -15 + wind chill all weekend. I honestly forgot what -15 felt like. I forgot what more than 2cm of snow looked like. But the defining moment of my weekend, the moment where I rediscovered my Canadian roots and remembered what winter was all about came can be summed up in one word: Shinny. [Litmus test: if you do not know what 'Shinny' is, you are definitely not Canadian]. Ah yes, that glorious winter pastime, that rite of passage for men both grown and growing. A tradition steeped in over a hundred years of history, and played on frozen ponds and backyard rinks across this country from coast to coast to coast. One thing's for sure, there is nothing on earth like a good game of Shinny. Playing street hockey all year round and pond hockey in the winter was a normal part of my growing up, but sadly, since university and moving to T.o., I hadn't played hockey in probably 8 years before Saturday. I was reminded at what a beautiful game it was and how much freakin' fun it is! Maybe it's time I head down to Canadian Tire and purchase myself a stick, then head on over to Regent park or Nathan Phillips (after 11pm) and join in a game or two...

Now, I'd like to present a special feature called, "Only in Canada: Shinny edition"

Only in Canada...

...would 10-25 able bodied and sane persons venture outside voluntarily to play a game in -15 degrees
...would 25 complete strangers ranging from age 10 to 40 join together in one, totally confusing game of hockey on a flooded baseball field, just minutes away from a major urban city-centre
...would not 1, but 2 fully equipped goalies show up and play in a game where clearly nothing is at stake
...would you play a game that causes you to lose all feeling in your fingers and toes, makes it so hard to breath you nearly choke on the air, and getting hit with the puck or the stick can cause serious pain ---and yet, every minute you're playing it is sheer joy!

[full disclosure: the CRTC was on my case for not providing enough 'Canadiana' in my blog posts of late]

Cognitive Dissonance: Status Report

2007-01-18T10:50:00.000-05:00

So, I finally decided to buckle down and get a flat screen TV on the weekend. In a rare moment of weakness, I suppressed my 'Dutchness' just long enough to settle for the best deal in Toronto, rather than waiting for the best deal in the universe. I went with a 42" Sharp LCD, and let me tell you, she's a beauty. Even K is lovin' it. However, it's kind of like having a Corvette with a Volkswagen engine right now because it's hooked up to basic, not-even-digital cable while we wait for the HDPVR to arrive from Rogers. The possibility of watching the Raptors play in HD on a 42" screen is making me drool. I'm also quite excited to try out this PVR thingy. From someone I know who already has one, the best part about owning a PVR is that you will no longer watch 'crap'. Who couldn't use a little less 'crap' in their TV diet?

It's been in our home for 5 days and the cognitive dissonance level I'm experiencing is surprisingly low for such and involved purchase, but I'm reserving judgement until I actually see the thing with a High-Def signal. But remind me to post again in a year when my TV is going for 50% of what I paid for it...

On an unrelated note, I noticed I've actually been getting a decent number (by my standards) of hits this week even though I've been slacking. Must be all my Ikea Hacker fans.

Apple TV is here; iPhone coming soon

2007-01-09T15:04:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs just announced 2 new Apple creations: Apple TV and the iPhone. They are taking orders now for Apple TV, but apparently the iPhone won't be shipping until June :(

Check out the Apple TV thingy. Cool!

Engadget's CES page (iPhone pics here)

Shameless self promotion

2007-01-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

I hadn't been over to Ikea Hacker in a while when I came across this poll they are having for the "Ikea Hack of the Year" for 2006. I was surprised to see 'Le Banquette' made it into the finalists for the vote. I was even more surprised to see that I was actually in the lead with 44% of the vote! All this without any Thought Space shameless self-promotion. Now, I'm asking you, all of my loyal and faithful readers to click on over to Ikea Hacker and vote for me in this incredibly important and meaningful contest. Surely, now that I have unleashed the legions of Thought Space readers on this poll my % of the vote will jump from 44% to at least 45 or 46.

edit: apparently you can vote simply by using the polling box below and you don't even have to go to the Ikea Hacker site if you're too lazy.

<a href="http://micropoll.questionpro.com/akira/MicroPoll?mode=html&id=21254">View MicroPoll</a><br /><a href="http://www.questionpro.com/">Web Survey</a><br /><a href="http://www.micropoll.com">Free Web Polls</a><br />

VOD: Kodak Asks, "How's that for advanced? BOO YA!"

2007-01-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

This VOD comes from Chris. It seems that after years and years of floundering, the boys down in Rochester might be finally figuring out that this whole 'digital thing' is here to stay. Time to forget the past, embrace the future, and nothing says 'We're serious digital players' like a good old fashioned viral marketing video (old fashioned as in like, 2004). This is a funny video, but I must admit, it might only make sense to the 'business geeks' or just the geeks in general out there.

Check it out.

Precognitive Dissonance

2007-01-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes your arm hurts before the doctor gives you the needle.

I've been in the market for a flat screen TV for about a month now. Boxing day has come and gone and I still haven't bit the proverbial bullet. It seems I'm finding this a very difficult purchase to make. The problem is prices on these things are falling so fast that it is basically guaranteed that whatever you buy today, 6 months from now you will be kicking yourself because you realize the price of that thing has gone down by hundreds of dollars. So there it is, I'm prekicking myself before I have even bought anything. I was all ready to pull the trigger on Boxing day, but I didn't see any deals that wowed me (I have a very high standard for what qualifies as a 'deal'. What can I say, I'm Dutch). So now I'm hoping that the 'Buy a Big Screen TV to watch the Superbowl' sales will be coming soon and I'll pick something up this month.

FYI, for those who are interested, I'm looking for something in the 37-42" range, and probably LCD, although I haven't totally ruled out Plasma. Brands that I like are Sharp, Sony, and Samsung. I was originally thinking about going 'budget' and getting something like a Viewsonic or an LG, but then I was convinced to go 'higher end' so that the TV you buy isn't an obsolete piece of crap in 2 years.

A very convenient temperature

2007-01-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

It's January. It's Canada. It's 6 degrees and sunny.

Got a tan today? Thank global warming.

I finally saw 'An Inconvenient Truth' this past week. As a movie, it's not that compelling and kind of boring-imagine Al Gore presenting a slide show for 90 minutes and you've got it. But as an essay or a sermon, it's pretty good. Certainly, after I watched it, I couldn't help but notice some of the headlines that were flying around the media just this past week alone.

December was warmest ever for Toronto.

Huge Ice Sheet breaks off of Ellesmere Island

There isn't much new information in the movie, I remember hearing the same set of facts being presented as far back as when we did a 'Unit' on 'The Environment' in Grade 6 (circa 1992), but it does sort of put it all into one nice little package that sells well to the American consumerist mindset.

My main criticism of the movie would be the complete and total absence of any actual scientists in the movie. We are just supposed to take Al Gore's word for it, after all kids, he did invent the internet. Plus, he has a lot of friends who are actual scientists and they told him it was so. My other beef was that when it gets to the part about what we are supposed to do about this whole global warming thing (i.e. the last 5 minutes of the movie), the solutions presented are severely lacking depth of insight. Basically it's more of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Again, back to the Environment unit from Grade 6. [On a side note, another notable omission from the film is any discussion about Kyoto, particularly why the U.S. did not sign on to it even though Gore was the VP when it was created in '97].

For me the real question is not is Global Warming a reality, that is essentially fact at this point. The real issue is what, if anything, can we do to stop it? I'd like to hear some more compelling discourse on this side of the equation in the future or perhaps in the inevitable sequel to 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

Seen the movie yourself? I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

Most depressing day of the year

2006-12-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of winter, and the shortest day of the year. Yep, that means sunset will be happening some time around 1 o'clock this afternoon. The good news is, it only gets better from here on out until around June 21st-then it gets depressing again. For those of you with SAD, this is a good day. For those of you with interior lighting, you couldn't care less.

Only 5 more days till Boxing Day!